Gendered Governance and the Male-Dependency Trap in Mining-Induced Relocation: Evidence from Arda Transau, Zimbabwe

Mining-induced relocation (MIR) is expanding across the Global South as demand for minerals including diamonds and transition minerals such as lithium and cobalt intensifies. Despite growing scholarship on displacement and extractive governance, limited attention has been paid to how post-relocation governance arrangements shape women's long-term outcomes. This article asks: how do institutional arrangements shape women's livelihoods and institutional access following MIR in Arda Transau, Zimbabwe? Using a qualitative case study design, data were collected from 35 participants through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and key informant interviews conducted in 2024. The analysis draws on the Capabilities Approach and Social Capital Theory to examine governance-mediated post-relocation outcomes. Findings show that relocation intensified women's unpaid care burdens through the financial and time costs associated with water and fuel access while undermining livelihood autonomy through the loss of riverine gardens and independent income sources. Participants also reported increased health pressures and disruptions to children's education. In response, women mobilized bonding social networks through churches and savings groups (mukando) that provided emotional and material support. However, these networks enabled survival without transformation because women remained excluded from institutional decision-making and resource access. Community accounts suggest a pattern consistent with a male-dependency trap a governance arrangement that routes institutional access through male household heads. The paper contributes to extractive industries scholarship in two ways. First, it theorizes resettlement as a governance-mediated process. Second, it introduces the male-dependency trap to explain how institutional design reproduces gendered exclusion within extractive governance systems.